


Red & Grey Bleed the Stone: A Game of Thrones Tale

by skysonfire



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Children of the Forest, Coldhands - Freeform, F/M, House Stark, Love Story, North of the Wall, Side Story, The North remembers, deepwood motte, dragon glass, house glover, shadow tower, the wall - Freeform, white walker, winter is coming, wolfswood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 20:11:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7452403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skysonfire/pseuds/skysonfire





	Red & Grey Bleed the Stone: A Game of Thrones Tale

The snow is thick from centuries and still falling as she rides out into the ancient trees so infrequently considered by the eyes of men. She pulls her fur-lined hood around her face and dismounts her horse once she is deep amid the forest and fully lost. Her heart panics in her chest, but she clenches her eyes tightly and sucks in breath. She knows he’s there. She knows it, and it’s taken her long enough — there is no more time to waste. Winter had already arrived.

She strides about, uncertain, but finally cups her hands to her mouth and sings loudly a northern herding call. Her breath comes fiercely and sadly. The pressure builds in her head and a tear escapes the corner of her eye. Her voice echoes like a spirit through the pines, touching and inspecting every green needle. Where are you? The noise of her voice sings. Where?

She calls until she has nothing left — until the sun fades behind the mountains in the far reaching distance. She barely notices the freeze setting about on her toes and fingers, and she slumps against a wide tree, slipping to its base. “Please,” she whispers and weeps. She weeps for the first time since she had heard of his disappearance years ago. She weeps for all the time lost. She weeps for the future, and she weeps selfishly for her broken and scattered heart.

The Walkers will come. She knows her voice had traveled miles out in the endless echo of the north. Death will come one way or another, and there was no sense in hiding.

She spooks her horse away and wraps her long, scarlet cloak around her frame. Her bow and quiver she rests beside her against the tree and she waits for sleep to come. She considers the undersides of her hands for a moment before the cold shudders her unconscious. “Goodbye, Ranger,” she whispers into the darkness.

When she wakes, her front is warm, and when she opens her eyes she sees a small cave fire that crackles and spits beside her. She shifts her weight and when she does, the rocks on which she rests move to life. She snaps her head back, but instead of stone, her eyes behold a face. She is lying in his lap, and she hoists herself up using his knee for leverage. He places his hand on her neck, behind her hair. His touch is an alarming freeze, but she fails to flinch. “Ben?” She asks, awestricken. Her eyes dart about and touch at every corner of his face in an attempt to complete a memory that she knows so well. He watches her carefully as her expression changes; she communicates worlds in just a moment of watching. Confusion; uncertainty; alarm; fear; relief.

“Oh, gods, Ben.” She throws her arms about him and he brings her to himself fully. He envelops her with arms so strong and she pushes her face into his black cloak. He smells of earth and ash; of grass and fire. There are familiar hints on him of old oil, which make her heart surge, and something more alarming that lingers in the background — something that smells of death.

“I was afraid,” she admits as her fingers tangle and grip fast the wool he wears. “I was so afraid …” Her voice trails and he smoothes down her long, black mane of hair. There is a faint sensation in his chest that she feels, but it’s not the heartbeat she once knew — the one that occasionally skipped and galloped when they were alone, entangled and torrid in the dark. She draws back and studies his face more scrupulously.

“I was afraid, too,” he says quietly. “Until they killed me.” Her green eyes widen and moisten as he goes on to tell her about the blade of ice and the children of the forest; the dragon glass to the heart that brought him back to this world, and the curse with which he is now bound. Dead yet living — never to venture south of the Wall again. Misplaced and solitary. Coldhands.

She brings her palm to his face and runs the tips of her fingers over the twin cuts between his brows, the gentle fine lines touching under his eyes that can be so serpentine in thought. There are visible wounds to his face, gifted him postmortem. They pucker his cheek and scatter across gray flesh that covers the countenance of the man she knows. She traces the familiar half-circle scar by his left eye that he achieved whilst living, and he draws nearer to her. They suspend there in that moment and she observes the way death has made his eyes a different tone of blue than before. She considers this new look carefully, something so foreign and forever.

“Are you still afraid, Kelda Snow?” He murmurs at her, his voice weighted in the fields of the north, and she takes the moment to press her lips against his. There is no warmth in the sensation of his response, but he accepts her deeply and the moisture of their mouths dances between them. His lips feel like frozen water, but the way he slides over and inside her is so familiar. A pensive heat stirs within her and she furrows her brow against it. She whimpers and he places his hands on her shoulder blades under her cloak. She can feel their cool squeeze and she lifts herself up onto her knees, hovering above him and grasping his face in her hands.

When he pulls from her with a gentle pucker she watches the swirl of mist conjure between their faces, like warm breath heaving in the cold. She can still feel him on her mouth — a scalding burn from the touch of ice. 

“Yes,” she finally responds. “Because I know what you’re going to say, Benjen.” She battles exhausted tears. Even as she sits with him she grieves his loss. Even as he watches her in the firelight, she pleads silently to the old gods. Let him come home.

He beckons her to rest against him and she does. He holds her close and his lips find the warm pulse of her neck. She watches the snow falling straight and quiet at the cave’s opening.

Her voice is so quiet when she continues. “Will you at least come to my dreams?” She asks, pressing her back into his chest.

He is silent for a moment. “I will,” he says, finally. “I came to you despite all things — despite the Watch; despite death. Eternity’s the only thing left to fear.”

She says nothing, but hangs on his words that drip one after the other into the pool of their story.

“Go back to Deepwood Motte. Nothing is over. Not yet.”


End file.
